Currently remote site display systems use multiple two-dimensional (2-D) TV camera views during the teleoperation of remote equipment controllers. Operators of the remote equipment must fuse the multiple 2-D views and form a mental image of the 3-D space to determine the relative orientation of remote objects. During close range manipulation tasks human operators have the most difficulty in efficiently and safely controlling a manipulator. Specifically it is difficult to accurately position the manipulation tool on the end of a manipulation arm closer than a half-foot or so from the desired location and the time to complete a close-range operation can take up to 20 minutes or more. Such control difficulty is the partial result of the loss of 3-D information on flat 2-D TV screens. In a TV image, 3-D information is lost. Only monocular cues to distance are preserved such as size, linear perspective, and interposition. No binocular or accommodative cues to distance are available.
Stereographic display systems have been developed as an alternate display technology to provide the observer with binocular cues to depth through the presentation of binocularly-disparate images. In a typical system, a pair of cameras at the remote site send disparate images to each of the observer's eyes. However, the fused 3-D image can only provide the correct perspective information from a single vantage point. To create a full-parallax display, that is, one having both horizontal and vertical parallax, the observer's head must be tracked so that the remote stereographic cameras can be repositioned to correspond to the new observer viewing angle. However, head-tracking technology has not yet been sufficiently perfected so that a new head location can be acquired and a new camera location repositioned fast enough to present a smoothly-transitioning display image. That is, the display cannot meet the expectations of the human visual-vestibular system and motion sickness symptoms can result while viewing the stereographic display. It would be advantageous if a system could be provided that could achieve a full-parallax, three dimensional (3-D) display with binocular as well as accommodative cues to depth that are similar to natural vision.
It is therefore one object of the present invention to provide holographic display of a remote operations site in near-real-time.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a full-parallax holographic display of a remote operation site that simulates natural vision.
Another object of the present invention is to provide holographic display of a remote operations site by generating a holographic image of the remote site from a database created with a laser range scanner.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide holographic image of a remote operations site from a multiplane exposure method.
Yet another object of the present invention is to generate holographic image of a remote operations site from multiple depth planes derived from a laser range scanner database.